BRICK WALLS AND BREAKTHROUGHS 

ZOOM Meeting

Wednesday, 19 June 2024, at 7:30 p.m.

Steven Brock has traced his roots in Russia and Poland to the late 1700s. He has been a member of Montreal and Hamilton JGS and now, Toronto. Steven has also been involved in various projects and is an avid researcher and genealogist.

Discovering My Elusive Family — from Poland to France to Canada In 2012, by sheer luck, Steven was contacted by a long-lost cousin. He was then able to re-establish common roots and to add dozens of family members to the family tree.

Sharon Fingold was born and raised in California, where she still resides. She became interested in genealogy when she was introduced to relatives during her college years in the East. She met more of them in Toronto and joined JGS Toronto. Sharon has been researching her roots for the past 40 years. 

Feingolds, Fingolds, Morrises, and Taratutas: Who came first? What was the common connection? How did we end up in Toronto in the 1920s and 1930s? The presentation will show how interviews, records, and Ancestry data helped the family to answer these questions.

Jerry Scherer is a Vice President of our Society.  A retired teacher, he is an active and knowledgeable genealogist.  Jerry will demonstrate how AI solved two challenging photo genealogy puzzles and uncovered the names of three relatives who fought for the Soviet Army in Operation Barbarossa.

Henry Wellisch is the honourary president of JGS Toronto. He was born in Vienna, escaped from there and ended up as a prisoner in Mauritius. After liberation, Henry moved to Israel and eventually to Canada.

Recently, through a friend and his brother, Henry was reunited with a former co-prisoner from Mauritius. Their story is the focus of Henry’s presentation.